Open Praxis, vol. 11 issue 1, January–March 2019, pp. 71–83 (ISSN 2304-070X) “I find the whole enterprise daunting”: Staff understanding of Open Education initiatives within a UK university Sinead Harold University of the West of England (United Kingdom)
[email protected] Vivien Rolfe Independent open educator (United Kingdom)
[email protected] Abstract “Open” initiatives, which focus on increasing access to education, resources, and research, are often practised by individuals rather than universities. However, universities must now produce openly accessible research to comply with research funding and assessment requirements. To encourage staff participation, universities need to understand what participation barriers their staff face. 67 University of the West of England staff were surveyed about how they understood and participated in open initiatives. Four staff gave qualitative interviews about their experiences. This data was analysed to find correlates for participation and to identify participation barriers. Participants valued open initiatives and supported their underlying goal of increased public access. Staff faced many entry barriers, especially around resource maintenance, copyright, and permissions. Universities could reduce these issues by emphasising how open initiatives allow staff to save time and to avoid reduplicating resources, and by creating unified “open policies” that make staff permissions and restrictions clearer. Keywords: OER; open access publishing; open policy Introduction Openness and Open Education An ecosystem of initiatives based on the principle of openness –the ability to freely create, share and build upon resources– is widely used across teaching, research, and science. The concept of Open Education currently “addresses all dimensions related to operational, legal and visionary aspects throughout the analysis, design, realization and evaluation of learning experiences to facilitate high- quality education meeting the given situation, needs and objectives” (Stracke, 2017).